I am the Chief Insights Officer for Forbes Media responsible for managing Forbes' Insights thought leadership research division, as well as the Forbes CMO Practice. I am the co-author of "Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Services Firms Become Thought Leaders" now available on Amazon http://amzn.to/OETmMz as the previously published "In the Line of Money: Branding Yourself Strategically to the Financial Elite" available on Amazon http://amzn.to/AuHRN9
Bruce H. Rogers is the co-author of the recently published book Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Service Firms Become Thought Leaders

Will David Morken's Bandwidth Disrupt The Smartphone Carrier Business?

Bandwidth.com is the little company that could. The company that David Morken started in a friend’s spare bedroom in Park City, Utah in 1999 is now a 340 employee, $150 million+ revenue, business-to-business Internet services company based in Research Triangle, North Carolina that, if all goes according to David and his team’s plan, is about to take on the goliaths of the telecom industry—both handset manufacturers and carriers—all at the same time.

David Morken, Co-Founder and CEO, Bandwidth

Under the Republic Wireless brand name, David’s Bandwidth’s wireless handset and service division, recently introduced a category-busting smartphone service for $19 per month for unlimited data, talk and text. The service is close to five times less expensive than the average smartphone plan from traditional carriers.

It’s an audacious move to say the least, but one that David feels will succeed. The company will introduce an expanded handset portfolio later this year. The service is set to launch in August and is now “quietly” in Beta, but already has thousands of customers. “We announced our Beta program at midnight last November 2012, hoping to sell 500 phones and we ended up selling our phones to more than 6,000 people in 90 minutes all through word of mouth and social media,” said David. What’s Republic Wireless’ secret? Wi-Fi. Bandwidth’s tech team built the software capability around a version of Android that enables the handset to operate on both Wi-Fi and cellular for talk, text and data. Republic uses the Sprint cellular network so when Wi-Fi is not available, users can take advantage of the full functionality of the phone on the Sprint network. Calls are routed through Bandwidth’s CLEC network on the backend, which is the 6th largest voice carrier in the US.

The idea that there must be a better way to service smartphone customers with a less expensive option came to David after looking over his family’s phone plans. After incenting his six children with their own smartphones if they received straight A’s on their report cards at school, David found that his overachieving, smartphone-obsessed family was soon costing him $1,000 a month. He put together what he termed a “Tiger Team” at Bandwidth to work on solving the problem and Republic Wireless was born. His company’s penchant for nimbleness and innovation is testimony to the entrepreneurial spirit that drives the company.

“We’re passionate about democratizing mobile,” said David. But moving the company direction from a fast-growing, highly successful business firmly rooted as a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) to a Mobile Virtual Network Operator model is fraught with both big opportunities and risk—one that most publicly traded companies and large legacy carrier businesses would find challenging to maneuver. “We’re doing things differently. My business partner and I still control the business. We don’t have to answer to outside shareholders. So when it came to the idea of launching Republic Wireless, we resolved that the future of communications was mobile. I prayed in a simple way for the team to help us find a way through this new direction. Thankfully, we have a great team who were equally excited to help us build a new future for the company,” said David. Google’s Android system was introduced, providing his tech team with the open API that would allow the breakthrough in developing their mobile Wi-Fi solutions.

David’s contagious energy and affection for his business and employees is a reflection of his family focus, faith and his unconventional journey to successful business man and mobile industry disrupter. David earned a law degree from Notre Dame and spent four years as a Judge Advocate in the Marines. From the Marines he and his growing family moved to Park City and started his first business re-selling Internet services to small businesses during the internet boom in the late 90’s. It was during this time that a story on David’s start-up business by a reporter for Forbes ASAP (the now defunct technology publication published by Forbes) ran. “That one-article made my phone ring off the hook and our business took off after that,” said David. After two and a half years in Utah, he moved his business and family to Raleigh, North Carolina to be able to take advantage of the great technical talent coming out of Triangle Park and the University of North Carolina.

Now poised to reinvent his business and disrupt the billion dollar smartphone carrier business, David is a man on a mission and, as they say in the Marines, “The Mission is everything.”

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